The Real fun starts down at post #18! Everything else before that is old stuff from when I first got my truck.

I thought I would finally post up some pics of my "new" truck. I have had it for a year but have only had it driving for a week now. As I already had an '84 720 while I was fixing this '85, my wife simply referred to the '85 as "that other damn truck" because of all the bs I have put myself (and her) through getting it going. Here's some pictures of it as it stands now, and I will follow those up with the ridiculous story of me vs. the truck.

You can see my rust bucket '84 in the background. It's for sale if any of you want a rusty Utah 4x4.

I bought this truck last year for $300. No transmission at all, front end torn out and left in the bed, and had not been run in over a year. Engine was supposedly good with only 5000 miles since a rebuild. Half the work to remove the engine was done as the previous owner was thinking of a V8 swap. The truck also came with no wheels or tires, so I had to borrow some to tow the thing home.

I found a trans from a guy who was parting out a rolled over 720. When I went to get that I also picked up from him the roll bar and a full exhaust (as this truck did not have exhaust when I got it either). Once I had sourced the trans, I got my friends together and we threw the trans back in and got the front end all put together and got the engine all hooked up. I threw some junkyard 15" rims and 31x10.5 tires on to it for rollers. Somewhere in here along the way I also installed a set of Z32 buckets. Most comfortable factory bucket I have ever sat in.

Engine would not turn. Starter just clunked. Had not even thought to try manual turning the engine before now. So, we got a big bar and put a socket on the crank and turned it. We rocked it back and forth and back and forth over maybe a 20 degree range a few times. After fighting it with the bar and the starter for an hour, we finally got it to spin free. It ran for about 8 minutes then locked back up. It was done.

I told the wife I would have to take apart the engine, but at least when I was done it would be like new. I was wrong about the new part. This was the first bottom end I had ever tried to rebuild so I knew I needed to go carefully. I had the help of a more experienced friend on everything but the most important part. I got impatient on a day I had off and he didn't and put in all the bearings and the rotating assembly myself. I took pics and asked him questions and followed the book, etc. I felt great about it. I had even taken the time to completely clean down and paint the motor and the manifolds. I went beyond that and took the much cooler looking valve cover off my '84, cleaned and painted it and swapped it over.

Engine gets put back together, gets put back in, we fire it up. No oil pressure. Fight that for a while and finally get another oil pump. It works. Everything seems to be ok. We tune the Weber 32/36 that I put on there, time the beasty, seems great. At this point I actually swapped the valve covers. After that I had a dead cylinder. Oddly enough it seems that some of the adhesive used to mount the PCV duct inside the valve cover was holding one of my valves open all the time. I popped that goo out of there and it worked fine, but that was just one more problem we ran in to.

I take it for it's first drive, get about 100 yards, and the engine locks up. We can break it free but it locks up after a bit again. Soon as it gets warm it stops.

Get some advice from here, yank the motor again, pop off the oil pan only to look inside. I find one rod bearing that is hashed up, come to the conclusion that it was a bad off shelf bearing seeing as how I did not actually measure bearing clearances. I get a new rod bearing and when I install it, I plastigage it, then just for safety, I plastigage the other rod bearings too. They all check out so I assume that was the problem. Motor goes back together, goes back in truck. I even go register and insure the thing at this point.

Half an hour of driving later, engine locks up on me on the freeway. Had to get a tow home. Wife pissed cuz I apparently suck and the "nice" 720 is showing itself to be a bigger piece of garbage than the crappy one.

Wait a month, pull the motor. Wait a month, disassemble the motor. My experienced friend actually took it apart for me while I was working on my yard around him. He asked me how the crank is oiled. The stupid light goes on. I put the friggin main bearings in upside down and blocked the oil passages. All of them. I did it with thought and purpose. Idiot. No oil to crank means none to rods and none cylinder sprayers. I now have a blued steel connecting rod that has been magnetized and has a bearing basically welded to it, a destroyed rod bearing journal, and next to that, a destroyed piston that had galled to the cylinder wall a little.

Now I spend a month super pissed at myself because it was such a simple mistake that had now destroyed a perfectly good core. I clean up the block and rehone the cylinders, they are ok. Then I go and get a junkyard rotating assembly, and purchase a complete new rebuild kit. I measured everything out. It was all on the loose side of acceptable. Finally get the damned thing back together and it runs like a champ now. Still some work to be done, but overall, it is now an awesome truck.

All it took was Finding and installing a transmission, installing the front end, pulling and installing the engine 3 times (plus another engine in the junkyard) while rebuilding completely twice. Man, if I'm not awesome with the front half of a 720 by now, I never will be. Anyway, I love this truck and (especially after all I have put in to it) plan to keep it around for a good long while.

Next up, install the grill guard I have, and rebuild the front suspension (bushings joints etc.) Followed by complete radio rewire and install.

And for those who read that whole novel, this is what my trashed crank is destined to become.

Whenever I think that I'm out of my mind for putting this much time and money into an old Datsun, all I have to do is look some of your threads to know that I'm not nearly as whack as you are.

You're going to skin a few knuckles, stand up too fast and bump your head, hunt around the floor for the nuts and bolts you dropped, invent a few new cuss words and when you're finished you'll say "That wasn't so hard after all!"

All my 720s have tilt...didn't realize I had it....until I bashed my kneecap into the lever....ouch

I don't have power windows or even A/C, so maybe mine is a fake.

STs came with a variety of 'accessories'....ordered from the factory...many combinationsBrushed aluminum on dash face.Clock.Oil pressure, volt gauge and tach, standard on the 4x4Sun roofUpgraded door panels ST graphicsSteering Wheel.PLPW I had (have) 2 STs with all the aforementioned options

My st has blacked out interior. Oil/volt gauges, clock and tach. Upgraded door panels. Brushed aluminum trim. Thats it, no PL/PW, no sun roof, no ac. It does have a front windshield defrost wire but no switch for it? Has nice center console.

I'm fine without power windows/locks and sun roof. Less things to go wrong with it. AC would be nice for summer time, oh well! Happy with it as is.

My st has blacked out interior. Oil/volt gauges, clock and tach. Upgraded door panels. Brushed aluminum trim. Thats it, no PL/PW, no sun roof, no ac. It does have a front windshield defrost wire but no switch for it? Has nice center console.

I'm fine without power windows/locks and sun roof. Less things to go wrong with it. AC would be nice for summer time, oh well! Happy with it as is.

That front 'windshield defrost wire' is for the radio...antenna I believe.PWs are nice when your co-pilot is a dog and is all 'thumbs' when controlling the switch... DL.....not good when dog left in truck with keys still in ignition, if its paw hits one...both doors lock.Done it...

Center console...?My 85 2WD ST had one.....but no fittie in the 4x4 because of the transfer case shifter

That front 'windshield defrost wire' is for the radio...antenna I believe.PWs are nice when your co-pilot is a dog and is all 'thumbs' when controlling the switch... DL.....not good when dog left in truck with keys still in ignition, if its paw hits one...both doors lock.Done it...

Center console...?My 85 2WD ST had one.....but no fittie in the 4x4 because of the transfer case shifter

Its not an antenna, there's one on the fender (which is broke off but there. No radio stations here anyways)

that wire on the windshield IS the antenna, fm only. the fender mount is am only. for trucks without the windshield mount they were just integrated into the ground at the fender antenna. or in my case the A pillar antenna

Reviving my old truck thread and turning it into my 720 Shenanigans thread, a journal of all my random playing with these trucks.

My truck ran awesome for 2.5 years, needing only standard maintenance. It did some serious duty during that time. It hauled motorcycles, tools, engines, transmissions, 800 lbs of recycling at a time, did some time as my step fathers work truck, and finally blew the head gasket in May, while on duty as a commuter for my older brother after his truck died. I was pretty impressed considering the ratty way the engine went together.

Since it died, my step dad and I bought this. 1984 4x4. Running, but purchased as a parts truck. The boat was added by my step dad since the truck is parked at his place and he needed a place for it.

We towed it home flat with my step dads 720. I built a custom tow bar adapter that bolts on to any 720 beneath the bumper. Worked out pretty well.

Sadly, the first parts we needed from the truck were not what we expected. My step dad rear ended somebody, destroyed his grill guard and radiator, bent in his radiator support and hood and bumper. So last week I fixed that.

Pulled the radiator support out. Needed an anchor to pull against, so I wrapped a tow rope through the back doors of my pathfinder and hooked a come along to that. Worked surprisingly well.

Looks almost exactly like mine but without the black stripe across the bottom. ST 4x4, 1986, with fuel injection and a sunroof. It's a sweet truck.

It pulled out straight, then I swapped the hood and bumper, replaced the radiator and fan and it was done.

While his work truck was down, he decided to buy a 97 Pathfinder like mine and have me do a bunch of work his truck had needed for a while.

We also have a parts 97 pathfinder laying around. I just took the engine from it for my pathfinder. Because my step dad tows with his 720 almost every day, I told him about my brake upgrade theory regarding pathfinder parts. Since the parts were around I decided to go for it. It worked! I posted a thread about it in the brakes section. http://community.rat...-brake-upgrade/

Way bigger

So now I'm redoing all the front bushings. The lower control arm bolts at the torsion bars are completely rust welded in place. I spent between three and four hours working on this bolt till I finally got it cut off from both sides with a sawsall and got the Bitch out from there. Now to do the other side.... This is the second 720 I've done this job on. Same every time. It's the worst job on the 720. I used moog on my truck and they are nearly impossible to install. Pressing a metal sheathed bushing 3 inches into the frame blows. Hard. In the worst way.

So this time I used energy suspensions. All other bushings will still be moog, but this lower one is so incredibly terrible that it's worth any ride quality that gets sacrificed.

When the truck was in the accident, it was a towing a trailer. Some P.O. had jerry rigged a hitch out of 1/4 inch thick angle iron. The welds were kinda sketchy too, but in months of towing, they hadn't cracked at all. That all changed. The accident caused the trailer to fold the hitch down under the truck. Two of the four hitch mounting points broke off the truck and the remaining hitch framework twisted pretty seriously. So I cut that all off and built a new one.

Started off by buying one of these.

Rated to 3500 lbs, which is plenty. Ran by the metal shop and picked up some steel square tube from their scrap pile and got to work.

Welded in two cross beams to the truck. Then welded two braces to the receiver I had bought and got that whole unit jammed up under the truck to be welded in.

All finished and rattle canned.

When installed, the ball sits about 3.5 inches from the bumper, should be plenty of space for a hitch to attach and rotate.